How did the aurorans do it? This ramshackle coalition of local governments bolted together as one isn’t a fraction as complex as their multi-planetary reign. Though given how that ended, perhaps they’d grown complacent in their biological and technological prowess in ways it was doubtful those with a much shorter reach might not have. Amelia pinched the bridge of her nose as she shut the door to her 128th floor residence and leaned back to take a deep breath. No wonder everyone in politics was a million years old. Becoming the youngest archivist since the CENTRAL articles of allegiance were signed was aging her at a breakneck pace.

“Old crone, here I come,” she mumbled as she kicked off her impractically heeled shoes clearly invented by sadists who enjoyed pretty girls suffering. She took her vest and sash of office off and brushed the long auburn locks that were becoming difficult to maintain with the humidity blowing in from the sea. At least the cool air blowing through the door to her balcony left cracked open. Her eyes shot open when she realized that she’d secured that door before she left. A smirk played at the corner of her lips. It seemed her favorite gargoyle had decided to pay her a visit once again.

Stepping out into the waning light of late evening, she gazed out over the steel scaffolding rising out of the decimated auroran ziggurats. This city, much like its current government, was such a patchwork of old and new ideas. She leaened over the carved marble railing and let the breeze wash over her. “I heard about the weapons contractor we lost track of, ” she lilted softly despite seeming to stand alone. “Shot through a prismaglass wall twelve times stronger than steel right in the head. A gauss rifle shot, the authorities think. Nothing above the collarbone was left on the sorry sod. I should be horrified, but I know how quickly his stockpiles were spreading throughout the lower city. I hope he had some of the answers you’ve been after. There isn’t a single archive I’ve found on the Autumnfall Incident that hsdn’t been redacted into the ground.”

“No, “ a gruff voice replied in stark contrast to her aristocratic accent. Amelia turned her head to see a figure perched on the semicircular railing. A thick cloak rippled around the figure, a static tang in the air from the circuitry woven inside the fabric deactivating so the tattered materiel stopped bending light. The haunted face of a gaunt young lynx looked out over the city impassively. His eyes were covered by amber lensed goggles and his lower jaw was obscured by a form fitting mask. Only the butt of a rifle that was slung across his back and a single scuffed shoulder pad etched with a blackbird broke up the silhouette of his hunched form. “He had no idea about the scientists that made the godawful things he was only too glad to loose on the world for a little profit.”

Amelia clicked her tongue, disappointed that the phantom-like bounty hunter would be denied justice once again. “I’m sorry to hear that. That was my last lead. I… wish I could have done more. I never did thank you properly for-”

“You’ve done more than most,” he cut her off, never one for sentiment as ever. “If everyone at CENTRAL had a spine like yours, I wouldn’t need to tear this city apart one crook and killer at a time.” His intense eyes could almost be seen burning through the glass of his targeting goggles. Even hunched and staring off into the distance, he radiated tension and pain.

“You don’t have faith in people, do you my morose little corvid?” She moved to put her hand on his shoulder but stopped short, uncertain he’d appreciate it. Hearing the sullen sorrow in his voice, Amelia often kept forgetting that this boy was the deadliest bounty hunter in the city. He’d lost everything because of some illegal experiments her own government had been complicit in back during CENTRAL’s infancy. Not that it could be proven with how thoroughly everything had been scrubbed.

“Only you, lady archivist,” the lynx replied impassively as he through a file folder and data crystal at her feet. The lynx’s latest target had left quite a paper trail that would make cleaning up the glut of dangerous and unstable arms all the easier. His response left her surprised and she flatered before retreiving the files. She’d known him for over five years since that nightmarish day at the cemetary. Even back then, in the falling snow and cooling blood of her younger self’s assailants, he’d been hesitant to ever express himself in anything but clipped speech.

Warmth peppered her skin before she cleared her throat and moved past the rare admission on his part. “Are you… going to be alright?”

The lynx shook his head and brushed an errant tuft of jet black hair billowing out of his face. He took a shaky breath and let a hint of sharp, gritted teeth show. “I’ve been in touch with an informant who is willing to trade information on Dr. Gregor Shanko’s current whereabouts to take care of someone causing him trouble. A flippant little vagrant called Kabbit who’s been getting his nose into all sorts of things around town. I’ve been watching from afar but…” He finished the statement with a grunt of frustration. The moment played back yet again, as baffling now as it was the last 1000 times the memory echoed through him. Staring down the sights with the auroran’s head filling the crosshairs. Finger on the trigger getting more taut and ready as he controlled his breath to level the barrel. Why had the target whirled his head around to look right at him 300 meters away? Why did those luminous eyes so instantly strip bare the fearsome avatar of revenge and leave him a scared little boy whose home was burned to the ground for the first time in ten years?

Amelia nodded as realization dawned on her. “But you couldn’t pull the trigger on an innocent in all this.” She knew him as well as anyone it seemed with his frequent nocturnal visits regarding their shared interests. This was highly uncharacteristically indecisive for the otherwise lethal young adult. He turned to her with wordless snarl on his face. He was letting him get too close to the politician woman. Too… vulnerable. Pain shot through his right arm and a clenched fist made the hollow knife-like needles embedded into the flesh and bone of his hand extend with a metallic clink. The implants were starting to burn. He’d need fresh blood soon.

Standing, he replied with the cold cadence of the grave, “no one is innocent, lady archivist.” With that, he stepped off the balcony into freefall. Blackbird’s thick cloak rippled as he plummeted down the building with only the safety line connected to the grappling rig stuck in the marble where he’d been standing remaining. He shot another line from the launcher on his right arm and swung into the evening gloom and going all but invisible again. Amelia stood with chills running down her spine at how sincerely and utterly without doubt her lynx of the night had said that. God help whoever this Kabbit character is.
---

This awesome piece of concept art by Kifox Crimson is of a longstanding character of mine who has gone through a couple of revisions over his existence. Blackbird is the tragic byproduct of CENTRAL's super soldier experiments attempt to reprogram revenant cells and inject them into subjects. Somehow as a child, Malcom survived exposure to a breach in containment but not before his hometown was put to flame to cover up the whole affair. He's only known pain and a white hot need for vengeance since. The cells have woven multiple implants throughout his body giving him impressive physical abilities but at the cost of terrible pain unless he uses the needs in his hand to siphon blood from victims. He is a bounty hunter more myth than man to most but he shuns underworld contracts as pathetic contract killings for the weak. Instead, he singularly chases those responsible for the experiments at Autumnfall and is willing to do anything, no matter how cruel and vile, to see it done. He serves as the parties eventual marksman and infiltrator but not without some hiccups. He's not exactly an idealist ready to sign on to Kit's absurdly ambitious agenda. In battle, he uses his gauss rifle and twin SMGs stashed in his forearms to take enemies apart with precision gunfire. He uses grappling lines fired from his wrists or ankles to rapidly reposition and avoid close combat as much as possible. When he absolutely has to, he can use his knives to handle melee but he's the worst in the whole game at that sort of fighting. To make up for it, his gunfire is absolutely devastating and he has lots of sneaky tricks to engage at his preferred distance.

Art by Kitfox Crimson
Character by  kitkabbit